Mengelmoes 1: The Schoolboy

by Willem Samuel

You don’t see a lot of comics coming out of South Africa. For that matter, you don’t see a lot of comics about South Africa. Could it be that, with a history of oppression, insurrection, a leader of legendary status who survived confinement and worse, to emerge with his ethics and dignity intact, and a land of astonishing beauty where the people struggle almost daily to try to heal the wounds inflicted on a land they all love, that no one was able to find a story worth telling?
Yeah. Right.
Which brings us to Mengelmoes, the first issue of which you’re about to read.
Willem Samuel was a teenage boy, growing up in the 1990s. Like any teenager, the world is a confusing place, where you have to find your friends and discover who your enemies are. Unlike a lot of teenagers, he was growing up in South Africa. Fortunately for us, Willem is a brilliant artist and storyteller, who documented his life and times as it happened – Willem’s way of dealing with a dramatically changing world.
Mengelmoes is Willem’s autobiographical story of growing up in interesting times. Over 6 issues to be published throughout 2014, we’ll experience South Africa as he saw it, including the many and varied flights of imagination.
Oh, and Mengelmoes? It means mish-mash.